Women Often Have Repeat Abortions Until They Find Hope and Healing in Christ
During the months of March and April there will be 85 Rachel’s Vineyard weekend retreats offered for healing after abortion throughout the United States and internationally. We estimate that approximately 800 people will be served.
The women and men who attend these retreats are always surprised there are so many others who experience prolonged grief and trauma after abortion. Resonating strongly with one another’s stories, they realize they are no longer alone in their distress. Their isolation ends.
This helps to lift the stigma and shame in a world where suffering after abortion is ignored and minimized. Those in supportive healing groups learn it’s possible to survive and find meaning in all the unspoken suffering.
Grief and heartache that’s honored can move us toward a deeper empathy for the suffering of others. Especially when we have experienced the redemption of our own terrors, we are better equipped to journey with others through unspeakable loss—to help bear their burden or sorrow, to help another rise up.
Hundreds of life-giving ministries have been started by people who have been healed from their abortions.
HELP LIFENEWS SAVE BABIES FROM ABORTION! Please help LifeNews.com with a donation!
But the impact does not stop there. When a person is healed from the traumatic experience of abortion, they bring that healing back into their families and their marriages. They become more present to their children. There is a ripple effect for the entire family, the community, and the world.
Once they have discovered the peace that ends their internal war, many women desire to give voice to their own truth. They feel they were misled, lied to, deceived, pressured and exploited during their pregnancy. They believe women deserve better than abortion.
Men also participate in public testimony and share their regret. Other fathers are deeply troubled that men have no rights to protect the lives of their unborn children. The significant “voice of experience” in the ongoing public debate provides important perspectives. For some, their empowering sense of grief resolution becomes the impetus for political engagement.
But when we deny the pain—and sometimes horror—of what it means to suffer the loss of a child in an abortion, we can also deny what actually happened. Instead of healing, our hearts harden, and we can negate what we need in order to feel safe and loved. Over time, this denial can have serious negative consequences.
We know repetition is one of the greatest indicators of trauma. A recent study revealed that women who have multiple abortions are at increased risk of adverse perinatal outcomes in later wanted pregnancies. These risks include pre-term birth and low birth weight, other negative longer-term medical and psychological outcomes, and a 50% increased risk of death from all causes for each exposure.
As a result, multiple abortions are a demonstrated risk for reproductive mortality and morbidity. Other findings show that women whose first pregnancy ends in abortion had on average:
- 53% more miscarriages than women whose first pregnancy resulted in a live birth
- 35% more pregnancies over their reproductive lifetime
- More than four times as many abortions
- Only half the number of live births
Since close to 50 percent of all abortions are repeat procedures, education about possible negative symptoms after abortion, and healing the unreconciled trauma is an effective way to reduce the abortion rate by half. When previous losses have been acknowledged and grieved, the re-enactment and compulsive repetition is halted. History stops repeating itself as women are empowered to make healthier choices that do not involve the abusive, and physically damaging experience of multiple abortions as a form of reproductive healthcare.
If you or someone you love is hurting from a past abortion loss, visit AbortionForgiveness.com for a comprehensive list of abortion healing resources. It’s normal to feel some anxiety, fear and reluctance to open up this area of darkness to the light of healing but be assured that the fruit of the healing journey will, in time, abundantly bless lives, marriages and families.
LifeNews Note: Kevin Burke, MSS, and Theresa Burke, Ph.D., are pastoral associates of Priests for Life and co-founders of Rachel’s Vineyard. An expert on men and abortion loss, Kevin is the author of Tears of the Fisherman and co-author of Rivers of Blood/Oceans of Mercy.
The post Women Often Have Repeat Abortions Until They Find Hope and Healing in Christ appeared first on LifeNews.com.